While I was out at Nikko Circuit one day recently, I found Chinen-san there, the owner of this Kisaragi Gold★Star-themed R34 GT-t. I had heard about occasional itasha meetings at a parking area on the Kan-Etsu expressway near my house, so I asked if he knew anything about it.

As it turned out, there was a meeting on a Saturday night not long after that day. Since it wasn’t much of a drive, I thought I’d head out and see what turned up.

It wasn’t long before I found Chinen-san and his Skyline. If you’re new to this and don’t know what an itasha is, have a read of this post first.

There was a good turnout, but the temperature was down around two or three degrees! Not the best weather to stand around looking at cars! Never mind, let’s have a walk around and see what was there.

This Hiace was quite impressive, with grungy Touhou-themed graphics.

My friend Mr S from Australia came along to check out the cars. He’s probably Facebooking some photos here.

I’ve seen this cambered-out and glittered-up Altezza at Honjo before, but he’s changed his rear window graphics since then.

Bandoh/Wedsport Super GT style?

Another adult game character, Carina from “Shukusai no Campanella” .

“Do these guys really drive around with these on their cars?” asks Ui from “To Aru Kagaku no Railgun”, a currently popular manga and anime series about highschoolers with psychic and telekinetic powers.

A few of the cars there were done by a guy called Horikiri-san, who runs a sticker cutting and printing shop. He heard I was coming to the meeting, so he cut up a Noriyaro sticker to give to me, which was pretty cool of him. He also does perforated vinyl window prints like this one. ノリヤロウのステッカーをありがとうございました堀切さん！

Horikiri-san also told me that since most of the companies that make these games are rather small, they are quite happy to send him their graphics in high-resolution.

This is the craziest Miku Hatsune-themed itasha I’ve seen so far. As for getting Miku graphics, most of them are fan-made, so it’s not too hard to request an original file from the artist.

Other Vocaloid characters get a look in too, such as Gumi…

…Rin and Len.

Miku is the most popular though.

Thought drift-style AE86s were immune from the itasha treatment? Nope.

“Yeah, I was thinking of a carbon bonnet wrap, but I ended up getting some lesbian schoolgirls instead.”

Itasha style seems to work best when the entire car is themed around the design, such as this March with Sasara Kusugawa from “To Heart 2″.

It was a bit disturbing to see how many Kyubey plush toys were in all the various cars at the meeting.

A few of the cars had interesting patterned reflective vinyl incorporated into the designs…desu.

Imagine going to pick up your girlfriend in a car like this.

Oh wait, who am I kidding, hahahaha.

I was thinking that Touhou seems to have lost popularity recently until this Demio turned up with Marisa on one side…

…and everyone’s favourite shrine maiden Reimu on the other.

For more itasha weirdness, click the “itasha” tag, or just click here.

“Yeah, I was thinking of a carbon bonnet wrap, but I ended up getting some lesbian schoolgirls instead

Lol really the best caption I’ve read in a while, you made a joke about girlfriends, is this a lonely guy only culture or is it one of those writes things in Japan where this is normal and the girls roll with it?

But in all hoenstly it is nice to see some examples of Itasha cars. I always found this scene facianting, especially because I have my fair share of itasha cars on Forza Motorsport 4 as well! If you play Alexi you should check out the storefront!